I got a very irritated voicemail last Friday morning from my new intern, Chelsea Werner, who was standing outside the Free Sheep Foundation craning for a glimpse at the supposed Japanese sloth bear in residence inside. It was raining heavily, and nothing living was in the window—there was a zoo setup, with trees painted on the walls, a canopy of mesh with leaves near the ceiling, a stump with bare branches set on the floor, and a bear-sized hole in one of the walls. The hole was empty.

Werner called Free Sheep cofounder DK Pan to let him know she was there to see the bear. Could he rouse it? Several rainy minutes elapsed. Then something fuzzy began rustling around in the hole. "It looked like the action of somebody putting on a bear costume, maybe, or—I don't know," Werner said. She was getting cold.

Pan finally came out. (We have therefore confirmed that he is not the bear; I was sort of wishing he were.) Werner, shivering, couldn't get much of out Pan. At first he said the bear was tired because at night passersby kept poking the window. Could you go poke the bear? she wanted to know. What can you tell me about it? Finally, "You'll have to talk to the Zoo to You Foundation," he told her. When she asked him how to get in touch with Zoo to You, he gave it up: "It's the PDL people," he told her—meaning the artists who, under that name, create false spectacles all around town. This one just rained on Chelsea Werner.